Australia unlikely to play significant military role in Iraq, say defence experts

Australia is unlikely to play any significant military role in efforts to bolster the Iraqi government against an al-Qaeda splinter group, experts say, despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott's vow to consider helping in any intervention.

Even with the Iraqi government facing its gravest crisis since US troops pulled out in 2011, experts say the US's options are limited and Australia's considerably more so, given the small public appetite for putting boots on the ground.

It is understood that any Australian contribution is likely to be restricted to a support role. One option could be to fly P-3 Orion surveillance planes out of a base in the Middle East to provide intelligence on the insurgents' movements.

It is also understood that Defence has a plan in preparation to evacuate embassy and consular staff in an emergency, such as if the insurgents threaten Baghdad.

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''I think (Prime Minister Tony) Abbott did the right thing to say we want to be helpful to the US but I just don't know how that translates into a military option,'' said Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a consultant on the Abbott government's coming Defence white paper.

''When it comes to what we can do, the answer is, 'very little'.''

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Mr Jennings said Washington's best bet would be to launch strikes from ships in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, along with fighters and perhaps drones, to target the jihadists' leaders and command structure. There is nothing that Australia could contribute to that kind of attack, he said.

Other experts agreed, with the Lowy Institute's Rodger Shanahan saying that the US was in the best position to provide practical military help.

Likely to stay out of desert storm: Defence experts believe the Australian military will remain relatively removed from the current Iraq situation. Photo: Reuters

Former chief of Army Peter Leahy, now director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra, said Australia should nonetheless make a public offer of support.

''They are the legitimate government of Iraq,'' he said. ''This is not a time to ignore or abandon them ... I think we need to support them for regional stability purposes and also to demonstrate clearly that this kind of activity from a jihadist radical group is totally unacceptable.''

"When it comes to what we can do, the answer is, very little": Peter Jennings. Photo: Jay Cronan

Mr Obama has come under attack in the US for his slowness in responding. Mr Jennings shares this concern. He pointed out that little of the promised US military equipment seems to have been forthcoming after the al-Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), took control of parts of western Iraq in January, forming a secure corridor with its home base in civil war-torn Syria.

''What have the Americans been doing in the last few months? ... They just don't seem to have grasped this one,'' he said. ''The most useful thing the PM (Abbott) can do is encourage Obama to be more decisive - try to push assistance to the Maliki government as quickly as it can.''

On the bright side, ISIS is so extreme that it tends to alienate local populations, reducing the likelihood that Sunni tribes will throw in their lot with the jihadists and deepen the danger of an all out sectarian war with the country's Shia majority.

But it has seized the spotlight with its lightning advance on Baghdad, which will help it recruit followers and inspire like-minded groups across the already volatile region, Dr Shanahan said.

This effect would be compounded, Mr Jennings added, if ISIS could hold onto the territory it had gained, notably the city of Mosul, Iraq's second-biggest. Therefore, the US's aim must be to kill the leaders as quickly as possible and give the Iraqi army the chance to drive the group back.

''The risk of that is if they were able to control the territory for any length of time, they've got a rallying point in the Middle East for Sunni jihadism and that's going to be bad news everywhere,'' he said.

''It exports that instability out of Syria and that seems to be their goal.

''They'll rule by fear. Then they'll use that ... to declare their Caliphate, call upon their jihadi brothers to foment the revolution and uprisings in Jordan and on the West Bank and in Baghdad and just sort of use it as a rallying point.''